Franz Ringhoffer
of Smíchov, Czech Republic
Founder of the firm was the coppersmith and inventor Franz Ringhoffer (1744-1827), native of Müllendorf (nowadays in the Austrian province of Burgenland near the Hungarian border), who arrived in Prague in 1769. He set up his workshop in the Old Town and produced brewery pans besides distillery and agrarian technical equipment. His son Joseph (1785-1847) established a hammer mill in Kamenice and extended the business by adapting it to the manufacture of special products for sugar factories and distilleries. Joseph's son Franz (II) (1817-1873), the first Baron Ringhoffer, obtained by government decree a concession for the manufacture of all categories of metal work and machinery for the whole country. He perceived the opportunity offered by railway development and started in 1852 the production of vehicles in Smichov, where he added an iron-foundry. The Works became the largest rolling-stock factory in the former Austrian Empire and then in Czechoslovakia.[1]